Flexible graphite has found many uses and applications, for example it is an excellant sealing material and may be used for gaskets and packing material at elevated temperatures.
The crystal structure of natural flake graphite consists of layered planes of hexagonally arranged carbon atoms with strong covalent bonding within the basal planes and weak van der Waals bonding between the layers. Due to such characteristics, many species of molecules, atoms, ions and even atomic clusters can be inserted betwen the carbon planes. Such intercalation creates a new type of compound known as a graphite intercalation compound (GIC). Properties of GICs differ not only from those of the host graphite, but also from the properties of the guest intercalates.
When a GIC is rapidly heated to a high temperature, the intercalates between the graphite layers vaporise and the GIC decomposes. This results in an over eighty-fold expansion in volume compared to the original flake material. This expansion (exfoliation) produces worm-like or vermiform structures with highly active, dendritic, rough surfaces which can be either molded or calendered into sheets.
The expansion process removes substantially all extraneous chemicals from the flake. The molding or calendering causes only mechanical interlocking of the expanded flakes so that the composition of the final sheet product is effectively pure graphite. Flexible graphite is a distinctive material with the essential characteristics of graphite plus some unique properties of its own. The standard properties of graphite include thermal stability, thermal conductivity, natural lubricity and chemical resistance to fluids. Flexible graphite combines with these properties the additional properties of flexibility, conformability and resilience. Such characteristics of flexible graphite differ from other forms of graphite and make flexible graphite a superior high-performance sealing material.
For example, gaskets made by flexible graphite are superior to conventional elastomeric bonded gaskets, such as compressed asbestos. The flexible graphite is more thermally stable and chemically inert with considerably less creep relaxation. More importantly, flexible graphite is not harmful to health, while asbestos can induce cancer. Gaskets fabricated from flexible graphite are also preferable to other non-asbestos sheet gaskets, such as aramids, glassfibre, and mica which have to be stock together by an elastomer. The elastomer typically reduces gasket thermal stability and increases creep, thus resulting in poor performance under loading.